In a common vehicle window opening/closing switch apparatus, multiple windows in a vehicle are opened and closed individually by multiple switches corresponding to the windows. Development aimed at reducing the price of window opening/closing switch apparatuses has recently been making progress, as disclosed, for example, in the international publication WO 2005/044631A.
The window opening/closing switch apparatus disclosed in the publication WO 2005/044631A is composed of a first switch and a second switch aligned on a panel. The following two operations are performed to open and close an arbitrary window in the vehicle. First, a single arbitrary window is selected from a plurality of windows by swingably operating a joystick of the first switch. Next, the selected window is opened and closed by slidably operating a knob of the second switch. As a result, the selected window is electrically opened or closed.
However, the window opening/closing switch apparatus disclosed in the publication WO2005/044631A has a configuration wherein the first and second switches aligned on the panel are mechanically or electrically linked to each other. Therefore, the window opening/closing switch apparatus is comparatively bulky and has a limited number of design options.
In view of this, there is a need for a technique whereby the vehicle window opening/closing switch apparatus can be reduced in size and provided with a larger number of design options.